An Early date for Matthew

[bane1]

What evidence do we have besides tradition that indicates an early date for the composition of Matthew?

 

[dmar198]

What evidence do we have besides tradition that indicates an early date for the composition of Matthew?

I remember reading a chapter about this in Karl Keating’s book, “What Catholics Really Believe.” But I do not remember his answer. Perhaps you should pick that book up, though, because it was an interesting chapter.

 

[ryanoneil]

It is Matthew’s normal procedure to point out how past events have enduring significance for the Church in his day (27:8; 28:15). Since Matthew records Jesus’ Olivet Discouse fortelling the Temple’s destruction (chap 24; cf. 22:7), one might also expect references to the fulfillment of this pivotal event had his Gospel been written after the fact. As it is, Matthew is silent regarding the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy (24:2); presumably the Temple was still standing and Jesus’ words were unfulfilled at the time he wrote his Gospel. This suggests Matthew’s Gospel can be reasonably dated before A.D. 70. (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible)

 

[Joe_5859]

From the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, p. 13):

Date It is difficult to know exactly when the gospel of Matthew was written. Dates ranging from A.D. 50 to 100 have been proposed. An early Church tradition is put forward by Papias (A.D. 130 and cited by Eusebius) and Irenaeus (A.D. 180). These Church Fathers give no specific dates but testify that Matthew wrote his Gospel — Papias refers to the “sayings” (Gk. logia) of Jesus — in either Hebrew or Aramaic. Since the version of Matthew we posess is written in Greek and is frequently cited in writings of the early Church, it is presumed that this Hebrew/Aramaic version, no longer in existence, predates the canonical Greek Gospel.

The Pontifical Biblical Commission, instituted by Pope Leo XIII to offer guidance to Catholic students of the Bible, concluded in 1911 that the original Hebrew/Aramaic version of Matthew was probably written before A.D. 70, when the Romans destroyed the city and Temple of Jerusalem. This conclusion finds support within the Gospel itself. For example, it is Matthew’s normal procedure to point out how past events have enduring significance for the Church in his day (27:8; 28:15). Since Matthew records Jesus’ Olivet Discourse foretelling the Temple’s destruction (chap. 24; cf. 22:7), one might also expect references to the fulfillment of this pivotal event had his Gospel been written after the fact. As it is, Matthew is silent regarding the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy (24:2); presumably the Temple was still standing and Jesus’ words were unfulfilled at the time he wrote his Gospel. This suggests Matthew’s Gospel can be reasonably dated before A.D. 70.

 

[Joe_5859]

It is Matthew’s normal procedure to point out how past events have enduring significance for the Church in his day (27:8; 28:15). Since Matthew records Jesus’ Olivet Discouse fortelling the Temple’s destruction (chap 24; cf. 22:7), one might also expect references to the fulfillment of this pivotal event had his Gospel been written after the fact. As it is, Matthew is silent regarding the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy (24:2); presumably the Temple was still standing and Jesus’ words were unfulfilled at the time he wrote his Gospel. This suggests Matthew’s Gospel can be reasonably dated before A.D. 70. (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible)

You and I were working simultaneously, I see.

 

[dmar198]

I remember reading a chapter about this in Karl Keating’s book, “What Catholics Really Believe.” But I do not remember his answer. Perhaps you should pick that book up, though, because it was an interesting chapter.

**EDIT: I just found the book on Google Books, and here’s an excerpt from that chapter:

Jean Carmignac [said] in [his book] The Birth of the Snyoptics… “I work with a methodology which is principally philological but historical on occasion” – that is, Carmignac based his study mainly on the meaning and history of words. … He translated the synoptic Gospels “backwards,” from Greek into Hebrew. He was astonished at what he found.
“I wanted to begin with the Gospel of Mark. In order to facilitate the comparison between our Greek Gospels and the Hebrew text of Qumran, I tried, for my own personal use, to see what Mark would yield when translated back into the Hebrew of Qumran. I had imagined that this translation would be difficult because of considerable differences between Semitic thought and Greek thought, but I was absolutely dumbfounded to discover that this translation was, on the contrary, extremely easy. Around the middle of April 1963, after only one day of work, I was convinced that the Greek text of Mark could not have been redacted directly in Greek, and that it was in reality only the Greek translation of an original Hebrew.”
Carmignac had planned for enormous difficulties, but they didn’t arise. He discovered the Greek translator of Mark had slavishly kept to the Hebrew word order and grammar. Could this have been the result of a Semite writing in Greek, a language he didn’t know too well and on which he imposed Hebrew structures? Or could the awkward phrasings found in our Greek text have been nothing more than overly faithful translations, perhaps ‘transliterations’ would be more accurate, of Semitic originals? If the second possibility were true, then we have synoptic Gospels written by eyewitnesses at an early date. …
[Carmignac] draws these conclusions about the dating of the synoptics: “The latest dates that can be admitted are around A.D. 50 for Mark… around 55 for Completed Mark, around 55-60 for Matthew, between 58 and 60 for Luke. But the earliest dates are clearly more probable: Mark around 42, Completed Mark around 45, (Hebrew) Matthew around 50, (Greek) Luke a little after 50.”

 

[bane1]

**EDIT: I just found the book on Google Books, and here’s an excerpt from that chapter:

Interesting. As it’s written, I don’t find it that persuasive, but maybe if I dig a little more I’ll find it convincing. I find such early dates for Mark hard to believe, especially when even the ECF’s believed that Mark wasn’t written until after Peter’s death, but I’ll check it out. I also tend to be skeptical of anyone who changes their mind after only a day of work, as Jean Carmignac did. If I was that person, I would have done a thorough amount of research before adopting such a radical idea.

 

[bane1]

It is Matthew’s normal procedure to point out how past events have enduring significance for the Church in his day (27:8; 28:15). Since Matthew records Jesus’ Olivet Discouse fortelling the Temple’s destruction (chap 24; cf. 22:7), one might also expect references to the fulfillment of this pivotal event had his Gospel been written after the fact. As it is, Matthew is silent regarding the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy (24:2); presumably the Temple was still standing and Jesus’ words were unfulfilled at the time he wrote his Gospel. This suggests Matthew’s Gospel can be reasonably dated before A.D. 70. (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible)

That’s interesting. It’s a small piece of evidence, but small pieces of evidence are all we really have. Of course, I think there are small pieces of evidence pointing towards a late date as well, which makes this subject so hard. This would have been so much easier if the Gospel writers had just written the date of composition in the Gospels, but that would just be too easy, I suppose…

 

[ryanoneil]

That’s interesting. It’s a small piece of evidence, but small pieces of evidence are all we really have. Of course, I think there are small pieces of evidence pointing towards a late date as well, which makes this subject so hard. This would have been so much easier if the Gospel writers had just written the date of composition in the Gospels, but that would just be too easy, I suppose…

Joe added it was probably originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic. Wouldn’t it be interesting if the date of composition was written there and got lost in the translation? That is probably not the case though.

 

[bane1]

Joe added it was probably originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic. Wouldn’t it be interesting if the date of composition was written there and got lost in the translation? That is probably not the case though.

That would be interesting, and useful, though of course, if it was lost in translation, it can’t help us now. Personally, I think a later date is more likely than an earlier one, I just started the thread to see if anyone knew good reasons to believe in an early date.

 

[buffalo]

The Gospels are Historical

 

[diggerdomer]

What evidence do we have besides tradition that indicates an early date for the composition of Matthew?

Just tradition. Most mainstream scholars today though suggest that Matthew was written in the 70s or 80s.

 

[bane1]

The Gospels are Historical

This is excellent, thank you very much!

 

[bane1]

The Gospels are Historical

Hmmm, I’ve read part 1, and one thing I don’t like about this article is that it states that Markan priority is dependent on Matthew and Luke being written independently of each other. It says things like,

“But, according to the Markan priority theory, these Gospels were created in separate communities that were out of touch with one another. This is an insoluble difficulty for the Markan theory.”,

“If Markan priority is correct, how could Matthew and Luke have arrived at the same phrase without having been in contact with one another?”

“Again the advocates of Markan priority meet the problem that, according to their theory, Matthew and Luke did not know one another.”

and my favorite:

“Markan priority insists that they did not know one another.”

This article seems to imply that the whole idea of Markan priority is dependent on Matthew and Luke being unaware of each other. However, the truth is, while some theories incorporating Markan priority, such as the two source/Q document theory, are dependent on the idea that Matthew and Luke wrote independently of each other, other theories, such as the the Farrer hypothesis, include Markan priority and allow for Luke to have been aware of Matthew’s Gospel. I think it’s incorrect to say that Matthew and/or Luke being aware of one another discounts the idea of Markan priority. Instead, I think that Matthew and/or Luke being aware of each other discounts the two source/Q document hypothesis(which, because of the need for a purely hypothetical Q document, was already too weak for anyone to take it seriously anyway).

However, the ECF quotes are good, and I’m moving on to part two. Hopefully something in there will shoot down the other Markan theories.